


Man's Best Friend

by After_The_Lights



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Family, Gen, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/After_The_Lights/pseuds/After_The_Lights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Humans are weird. They’re interesting creatures, with their odd smell and lack of fur. Interesting, but definitely weird.' </p><p>Life in the Alenko household, from birthdays, BAaT, and beyond, through the eyes of their newest member. Written for Kaidan Alenko Appreciation Week 2015, on the theme of friendship and family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man's Best Friend

Humans are weird.

At first I don’t even know that’s what they’re called. They’re just these strange, furless things with no tails who like to stroke my fur with their bald, long-toed paws.

Sometimes they just stand and stare. They come in different colours; dark brown, pink, beige, even white with a blue-ish tinge. They come and stare at me and my brothers and sisters, and sometimes they pick one of us up and play with us and sometimes they don’t. But they always stare.

They’re interesting creatures, with their odd smell and lack of fur. Interesting, but definitely weird.

One day, a pair of humans arrives. They’re both male, or at least I think they are. They _smell_ male, and one of them is tall with grey streaks in the black fur on top of his head and around his muzzle. The other is small, at least compared to all the humans I’ve seen, and his head-covering fur is also black. He doesn’t have any muzzle fur.

The larger one starts to talk to the brown human who is always here, while the short one walks towards us, towards the pen. Normally my brother and sisters jump forwards and wriggle around for visitors, but not for this one. Maybe they’re all a little tired. So I move forwards instead.

He smiles and reaches out his bald paw to stroke me and when I relax his smile gets even bigger.

“This one, Dad,” he says, turning back to look at the bigger male. Big one strides towards us, stares at me for a second and then at the small one.

“You sure, son? This one?”

I don’t know what either of them is talking about, but I wag my tail. Humans always seem to like it when I do that.

“Yeah Dad. I’m sure.”

“Alright then. This one it is.” Big one reaches out to pet me too, runs one of his long toes down my back before ruffling the small one’s head fur, smiles on both their faces.

“Happy birthday, kiddo. Happy Birthday.”

* * *

 

Small human’s name is Kaidan. Actually, his true name sounds more like kaidanalenko but he only seems to be called that when the female he lives with is angry with him.

It’s a small group he lives in, just three of them, two males and a female, but I can’t figure out the dynamics.

Big male is called Dad and he’s the alpha male, or at least he should be. He’s larger than the other two and seems more experienced, but he never seems to be around that much, always out at a place called _Work._

The female is called Ma and for some strange reason, she appears to be the pack leader. She’s short and rather loud and has more fur than the other two. Most importantly, she’s the one who does all the work. She gets the food, she cleans their sleeping areas and washes the odd things they cover themselves in. She is irrefutably in charge.

But not of me. That’s Kaidan’s job. He’s the youngest, the smallest, but also the most energetic. He’s the one who feeds me, who takes me for walks and bathes me and then brushes the knots out of my fur afterwards. He is the one who looks after me and the other two yell at him if he doesn’t, like they’re training him to be pack leader in the future.

Kaidan is also the one who names me. It happens a few weeks after I arrive at the place they call _Home._ He comes in with a box in one hand and scoops me up with the other, wandering over to the sofa and sitting down with me in his lap. He laughs when I nudge at the box with my nose.

“Looks like someone’s excited to see their present.”

He lifts the lid and I prop myself up to look inside. There’s a grey rectangle with some marks scratched on it. I’m not sure exactly how it is meant for me; it doesn’t look very interesting.

Kaidan takes it out and then steadies me, reaching for the thing I wear around my neck, the _collar_. He fiddles around for a bit and then there’s a clink and he moves back and looks at me with a small grin.

“Perfect. Welcome to the family proper, Pascal.”

* * *

 

I need to be fixed. Something called a V-E-T can do that. I wasn’t even aware that I was broken.

“But it’s not fair on her, Dad!”

Kaidan is not happy. I’m still not very good at reading humans. They don’t have a tail or ears that move so it can be hard to understand their feelings, but one thing I have learnt is that water coming from their eyes means that they are upset.

“Look kiddo, we have to do this. Ideally we should have done it months ago, but we didn’t because we wanted to get Pascal settled. And now that she is, we have to realise that we have neither the space nor the money, and most importantly, the time to look after and raise a bunch of puppies.”

“But…”

“No buts, son. She is having that operation and that is final. End of discussion.”

“But what if it hurts her? What if she comes back damaged?”

“Oh sweetie, there’s no need to worry. This is a very common type of surgery and they’ll give her something to make her fall asleep during it. She won’t feel a thing, trust me. Everything will be fine.”

“It’s still not right though. What happens in the future if she decides she wants to be a mom, huh? You’re taking that chance away from her!”

“Oh for heaven’s sake! She’s a dog, Kaidan. A dog. And as intelligent as they are, they don’t make the decision to have puppies after lots of mulling about and weighing up the options. It’s just something they do, what they are programmed to do. It’s in their nature.”

“So now you’re saying we should go against nature to make life easier for ourselves?”

Big human, Dad, doesn’t look happy either. He starts, like he’s about to say something but then turns around and heads out of the room.

“I need some air. I’m going for a walk.”

At the mention of a walk I bound towards the door but Kaidan is quick on his feet and scoops me up into his arms. There’s no water coming from his eyes anymore.

“Your Dad’s right, honey. Pascal needs to have this operation.”

“I know Ma. It’s just…”

The female places a paw on his shoulder and gives a small smile, even though I’m fairly sure she is not happy either.

“I should go make a start on dinner.”

Kaidan nods and lifts me up so that I can see his eyes properly. They’re brown but now they have a pink tinge to them. Maybe from the water.

“I’m sorry Pascal. I’m sorry. You won’t ever get to be a mommy,” he says.

I move forwards and decide to lick at his face. He tastes odd, a little salty and it causes him to turn the sides of his mouth upwards.

“And if the operation does hurt, then I hereby give you permission to bite me when you get back.”

I wag my tail. Biting things is always fun.

* * *

 

We are looking at a bunch of white dots. White dots on a dark background. Apparently they’re called stars and some of them, the important ones, have special names. Kaidan seems to like them.

“And that one right there,” he says, pointing somewhere way above our heads. “That one is Sirius, also known as the Dog Star. In fact, if you had turned out to be a boy then that was what I was going to call you.”

Personally, I don’t see the appeal. You can’t touch them, you can’t smell them, and you certainly can’t eat them. They don’t even move, at least not really. Plus, to see them you have to sit outside in the cold and the dark. The only good thing is that it means I get to snuggle up to Kaidan.

“And these are just the stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. There’s thousands, if not millions of other galaxies out there, all of them containing stars and planets too. And now that we know for sure that we’re not alone in the universe, it is highly likely that on some distant planet in a galaxy far, far away, some other boy is sat down with his dog doing the exact same thing we’re doing right now.”

I give a small woof, to let him know that I’m still listening. Kaidan isn’t fooled.

“You’re not really into this, are you girl? I suppose it’s a good thing then that I didn’t call you my first name choice, Andromeda. That’s the galaxy that’s closest to ours.”

I let my tail droop.

“Yeah, I know. Ma vetoed it. Said there was absolutely no way she was going to be looking for you if ever you got lost by calling out, ‘Here Andromeda, come here girl.’”

It is getting very cold, cold enough for great puffs of my breath to appear. They look kind of like clouds. So I stand up and Kaidan follows suit.

“I should probably tell you now, before we head in, that you’re not named Pascal after the French philosopher guy. But if anyone asks we’ll say that you are because it makes me seem smart for my age.”

I wag my tail to and fro and he smiles at me in agreement.

“You are named Pascal because Pascal was the name of the first girl to give me a Valentine’s card. I had a huge crush on her and I thought that naming my dog after her might be romantic. It’s not, actually, or at least she didn’t think it was.”

We’ve reached the door and Kaidan bends down to take off his boots. He stays crouching down to stroke my fur and I nuzzle his hand in appreciation.

“So yeah, if anyone asks, French philosopher. Not my first crush. Got it?”

I bark in place of a promise and then we both step inside, leaving the frosty night air behind us.

* * *

 

Kaidan is broken.

I had figured that something might be wrong. First his voice changed. It has become deeper, more like Dad’s, like me when I growl. I’m not sure if it’s normal for human voices to change but no-one seems to have questioned it. So I guess it is.

Then he started glowing blue. That I know is definitely not normal human behaviour.

Kaidan is broken and needs to be fixed.

But when I was broken no one could tell what was wrong with me. Nobody could simply look at me and say, ‘Hey, that dog is broken.’ But they can with Kaidan. That’s why he needs this operation.

Humans don’t like to be useless and if something doesn’t work like normal then it has no purpose. No one wants to be worthless. Kaidan isn’t, but other humans might think he is.

“You’re operation didn’t hurt that much, right Pascal?”

It’s night time and we are supposed to be asleep. Kaidan in his bed and me in mine, downstairs in the living room, but he snuck me upstairs after Ma and Dad left for their sleeping room and now I’m sprawled across the end of his bed, his hand patting my fur.

He goes away tomorrow and might not be back for a while. He’s told me that I have to listen to Ma and that she will take me for walks and that Dad will bathe me and brush my fur. I have to be nice and be on my best behaviour. No messing around, no chewing at the furniture, and definitely no more peeing on Ma’s favourite rose bush.

Not when she’s looking at least.                                                               

I want to tell him it will all be fine, but I can’t. I can only bark. So I settle for licking his bald right paw before curling myself up and settling down at the very end of the bed.

“Yeah, I get you, girl. Night night.”

* * *

 

I haven’t been to the park with Kaidan for ages.

He hasn’t been very well lately. His head has been hurting. His vision has been weird. He’s thrown up on occasion. His neck has been itchy.

Ma’s been taking me out for walks while he stays at home, in his room with the curtains closed. He won’t let me lick him anymore, not his face or the tempting looking circle thing on the back of his neck.

But that all might be changing because today we are here at the park, my favourite park, the one that’s named after the old pink human who lives across the road and pets me whenever I walk past. Stanley.

Kaidan has let me off the lead and I’m able to run wherever I please. So I do. Ma never let me run without a leash and it’s been too long since I’ve been this free.

The park is busy. There are people with other dogs, people walking with wheels on their boots, people who hover slightly above the ground standing on thin silver boards. It’s so busy that I don’t quite see where I’m going in my bounding and one minute all I see is the bottom end of legs and back ends of other dogs and the next it’s water and green scummy stuff and pebbles.

I don’t know how to swim.

“And there we go,” says a new voice as hands reach around me to pull me up and out of the water. “You’re ok now. Took a bit of a tumble in the pond but you’ll be ok.”

Something is draped over me and the new human starts to pat me down, drying me with what I later realise is one of its coverings. It’s a female, a young female with a very red scruff of head fur, and as far as humans go she’s pretty scruffy looking. There are holes in her leg coverings and she has a set of blue and yellowy patches on her arms.

“It’s alright,” she says and leans forwards, reaching for my collar. “We’d best be finding your owner then, right… Pascal.”

It turns out that we needn’t bother. Kaidan is still as fast on his feet as ever and has caught up to me.

“See Pascal. This is why I rarely let you run wild. You just love to draw attention to yourself, don’t you?” he says and bends down to attach my collar back onto the lead.

I whimper slightly and his mouth upturns a little as he stands up and turns to face the female.

“And thank you for rescuing her. She’s never been the biggest fan of water.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Watch and let a poor dog drown?”

The female must be younger than Kaidan. She’s a lot shorter and her face is rounder, plumper in the cheeks.

“Well, Pascal isn’t water’s biggest fan but I sure even she would have difficulty trying to drown in a few inches of duck pond. But thanks again. And sorry about your jacket.”

She laughs. “It’s fine. I’ve always wanted to smell like wet dog anyway. Keeps the boys away.”

“Jane!”

The female spins around and in the distance is a completely furless guy, no head fur at all, with strange black markings all down his arms.

She sighs and takes her now wet covering off me, before crouching down to look me in the eyes.

“Looks like I’m off. Take care Pascal. Please don’t try to drown yourself again. Your owner seems like a nice guy and I’m not sure he could take it.”

“Come on, lamb chop! I don’t have all day to be waiting on you!”

She stands with a huff, slinging the covering over her arm. The movement causes something to drop from a pocket but she’s too busy saying goodbye to Kaidan to notice.

“So, have a nice day, I guess. Enjoy the rest of your walk.”

She spins on her heels and jogs offs before Kaidan can reply. He looks upset, maybe disappointed. I tug at the bottom of his leg covering and he smiles, faintly, before noticing the thing that the girl dropped. He picks it up.

It’s a small plastic bag, like the one Kaidan uses to carry my treats when we go for a really long walk, only this one isn’t filled with bone shaped biscuits. It looks like a powder and it’s the colour of blood.

“Red sand,” he whispers and narrows his eyes. I think he’s angry. He looks at it for a few seconds, holding it in the palm of his paw, before shoving it in his pocket.

“Come on, girl. Let’s head home.”

We begin walking again, me still very wet and Kaidan still not exactly happy. We must make an interesting pair.

“You are so lucky that I like adventurous women.”

* * *

 

I hate the room where Ma washes the family coverings. I think it’s called the laundry room. I don’t particularly care. I just know that I hate it.

That room is the punishment room. The room where I’m sent if I’m too loud, too aggressive, too boisterous. It’s the room where I am sent if I get in the way. It’s the room I’m in right now.

There are strange humans in the house. Usually when other humans come to visit, Kaidan will tell me before they arrive, reminding me who they are and what to do and not to do with them.

Do let Grandma Eriko pet you because she loves dogs and finds it soothing. Don’t go near Cousin Michael because he has allergies. Do sit on Neighbour Christa’s lap because she thinks you’re adorable. Don’t approach Uncle Dimitri at all unless you want to end up racing against varrens in Las Vegas.

These humans arrived with no warning. They smell strange and they dress strange, all black, like the rugby team Dad likes. But they can’t be sports players. Sports players don’t have guns.

I started barking almost immediately. I don’t know why exactly, just that it felt like the right thing to do. It still does. Ma tried to calm me down but it didn’t work. Kaidan tried to quieten me down but had no success. Dad just sighed and picked me up to shove me in here.

He shut the door.

I have no idea how long I’ve been in here. I have no idea who the strange humans are or what they want. I have no idea what to do. So I wait. And wait. And wait some more.

Eventually the door opens.

It’s Kaidan. He looks upset. His eyes are red like they are after water has been coming from them. He won’t look at me.

“I’m sorry, Pascal. I’m so sorry. But I’ve got to go. And I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.”

* * *

 

Home isn’t the same without Kaidan. It’s quiet, quieter than it should be with the loss of only one person. I don’t like it. I don’t think Ma and Dad like it either.

Ma is in charge of me now. I’ve always liked her. She knows how to get things done. We spend a lot of time together in the garden and I help her with what she calls _weeding._

I’m not quite sure what separates a weed from any other plant but I do know that weeding involves a lot of digging and digging is something I am very good at. So that’s how we spend most of our afternoons. She bends down on her knees and digs with her weird shaped tools and I join her and dig with my paws, trying my best not to spray up the dirt and make her dirty.

In the end it doesn’t really matter because we both end up a mess anyway; a right pair of mucky pups, as she likes to call us. She bathes me and brushes the knots out of my fur and it’s nice and it gets the job done but it’s just not quite the same as when Kaidan does it.

Or did it, as I suppose I should say.

I don’t sleep in my bed in the living room any longer either. Kaidan’s room is now my room. It’s the only place in the house that still smells like him.

Sometimes Ma will come join me in the evenings and sit on his bed. Sometimes I stay curled up at the bottom and sometimes I pad over and settle myself in her lap. Regardless of what happens, she always strokes my fur, coasting her fingers through it and occasionally even fashioning parts of it into tiny little plaits.

We can sit there for hours. And every time we do, Ma says one thing and one thing only.

“I know, Pascal. I miss him too.”

* * *

 

It’s getting harder and harder to go down the stairs each morning. Kaidan hasn’t noticed yet, he doesn’t notice a lot these days, and I’m glad. I don’t want him to help me. I want to help him.

We share his room now and I sleep at the end of his bed every night. I find it hard to sleep sometimes because Kaidan moves around a lot, more than he used to, tossing from side to side, kicking at his duvet, even rolling out of bed completely.

Some nights he wakes up yelling, others he just doesn’t sleep at all. But I make sure I’m always there. He doesn’t like to say anything, not to me or to Ma and Dad. So I just lie there and let him stroke my fur. I think he finds it soothing. I hope he does.

Kaidan is broken again and this time I don’t think he can be fixed.

I feel worthless.

* * *

 

It’s getting harder to see, harder to hear, harder to breathe. It hurts and I’m cold. But at least I’m not alone.

“So it looks like tonight’s the night then, huh?” says Dad.

Ma comes over to me, to where I’m spread out on the sofa and starts to pet me with a quivering lip. I don’t answer Dad’s question. I don’t think I can. I’m still here but I’m too tired to try. Even moving my head is difficult.

Luckily, I have Kaidan here to move for me and he lifts me up into his arms, holding me close to his chest.

“I’m gonna go take her outside. It’s a clear night and the stars are out.”

Dad nods and so does Ma, rubbing at her eyes with her paws. We begin to move.

The air outside is chilly, not chilly enough for me to see my breath but still cold. Kaidan strides across the lawn, past the rose bush that I still occasionally pee on in secret, past the snowdrops that I helped Ma dig the holes for earlier in the year.

He sets me down gently on the lawn at the very bottom of the garden, the place where if you listen very, very closely, you can almost hear the ocean. He seats himself down next to me and then slowly and carefully pulls me into his lap.

“Excellent night for stargazing, don’t you think, girl?”

I wag my tail in response. Or at least I think I do.

“Look!” he says and points at a spot way above both of our heads. “It’s Sirius, the Dog Star. Come out to say hello just for you.”

I move my ears. He’s trying too hard. I want to tell him that’s it’s ok. That he doesn’t need to try.

“And over there we have Orion, the Hunter. Its brightest stars are Betelgeuse and Rigel.”

I want to tell him not to be worried. That I should be the one who’s worried. Kaidan has been broken twice already. I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“And now I have something special to show you.”

He reaches inside his chest covering and pulls something off from around his neck. He sets it down in his palm so that I can have a look. It’s two silver rectangles on a chain, and both of them have strange scratches on them. They look almost like the one I have hanging from my collar.

“See these. These are my dog-tags. There so if I get lost, people can tell who I am, just like they do with yours. And I’m gonna need them Pascal, I’m really gonna need them.”

He sounds happy, happier than he has been in a long time. I thump the ground with my tail.

“I’m going to space, girl. Not like I did the last time, but proper outer space. I’m going to explore and visit lot of different planets, I’ll meet lots of cool aliens, and I might even see if I can find a boy pointing out constellations to his dog.”

I woof to say I approve but it comes out as a whine instead. Kaidan pulls me closer. There’s a clinking sound and I realise that he’s taken the rectangle off my collar and is attaching it to the chain holding his.

“And I am going to make sure that you come along with me for the ride, Pascal. Because I have to tell you, I’m not sure I can do this thing all alone.”

There is water coming from his eyes again. In these past few years I’ve finally learnt what they’re called. Tears. I’ve never liked them. I lean in close, close to his face, and start licking them away. The corners of his mouth crinkle upwards.

Humans are weird.

Tears happen when they are sad, but smiles happen when they are happy. So if both occur at the same time it means you are equally happy and equally sad. I don’t understand it. I’m not sure I ever will. Or perhaps I’m just too tired.

Kaidan starts stroking my ears and I start to drift. He draws in his breath.

“So, what do you say, girl? Are you ready for an adventure?”

I am. But I’m also tired. So very tired. I look up at him and wag my tail. He smiles. His eyes are rimmed in pink.

And that’s when I realise that as weird as humans are, mine is the weirdest. And the reason he is the weirdest is because he is mine.

Kaidan. My human. Space. Adventure.

And then, only darkness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I have written in years; depression really sucks away at my creativity. I may or may not have gotten a little carried away, like 4K+ carried away, but this was one of those ideas that just came to me and then would not shut up. Possibly because Kaidan is a character that I adore and totally see as a dog person.
> 
> Pascal is not only a reference to Kaidan’s ‘The heart has its reasons, which reason cannot know,’ line but also to femshep, as in the French version her voice actress is Pascale Chemin.


End file.
